Shame live @ The Phoenix Concert Theatre, Toronto
Swaggering, bombastic, extremely fun, occasionally heartfelt and always a show full of love: that's Shame alright!
There may have been one of the biggest snowstorms in decades on the streets of Toronto, but inside the Phoenix on Jan 23, UK electrifying rockers shame were whipping up a different kind of storm.
Back in Canada after a 2-year break that saw them release their fourth studio album Cutthroat, the London alt rock, post punk band are currently on a long tour across North America that ends in Vancouver on 14 February.
Shame are a force to reckon with from the second they walk on stage, swaggering on the easy hip hop beats of Pharoahe Monch’s 90s hit ‘Simon Says’. Get the fuck up! Put your hands in the sky! It’s going to be one of those nights.
Exuding charisma, energy and with a captivating stage presence, frontman Charlie Steen has utter command of the crowd. Even through his cool shades, you get the sense that he’s connecting with every member in the audience.
Charlie Steen performs with Shame. Image credit: Sam Ciampa
Wielding his mic stand like a sceptre, Steen skulks the stage – every bit the post punk frontman. But he cannot help a little smile slipping through every so often. Shame the project has been a journey in self-acceptance and friendship for a band of childhood friends, growing up together, setting out to overcome personal insecurities through connecting with the parts of us all that are less talked about but are easier to present through music.
It’s what gives leverage to songs like ‘Adderall’ live. It makes the quieter self-reflections hidden within the monologues of songs like the new ‘Nothing Better’ and ‘Cowards Around’ more powerful and cathartic when a sold-out room of 1350 people is singing the words back to them. It’s what makes the boisterously fun lyrics of a song like single ‘Cutthroat’, title track of the latest album, so addictive and fun to bounce in a moshpit to live. It allows Steen to adopt a larger than life persona on stage, and facilitates the chaos, the crowdsurfing—and Charlie delightedly grabbing onto incoming surfers’ hands as they near the stage—into becoming one of the best live shows. He’s doing his little dances up on stage, shimmying his shoulders. He’s loving every second of it, and that’s why you’re going to love it too.
Charlie Steen of Shame in Toronto.
And the love and friendship around the room is palpable. ‘Snow Day’ is dedicated to a fan who had passed away, whose friend spoke to the band at the record signing they had done earlier in the day at Kops Records. Friendship was the theme of Shame’s last album, 2023’s Food For Worms, and you feel the quiet lament for lost time within friendships and their celebration on ‘Fingers Of Steel’ and ‘Six Pack’.
But don’t be misled by Charlie Steen’s showmanship up front of the stage, Shame are no one-man act. Watching bassist Josh Finerty is show in its own right. The music industry’s gain was probably the circus or athletics’ loss: Josh literally runs laps of the stage, twists, turns, jumps around, does flips, all while still playing his bass, singing backing vocals and generally keeping with the positive chaos that is a Shame show.
Bassist Josh Finnerty in action (and in air).
Shame came up in the Windmill scene of the late 2010s: bands that got their start and came up playing the iconic London venue, the Windmill in Brixton, bands like Fontaines D.C. and black midi. Shame had been talked about in the same breath as post punk bands of the late 2010s like Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital, Gilla Band, IDLES before them.
Check out more of photographer Sam Ciampa’s shots of Shame from The Phoenix on 23 January below.
